September 2015 – Unleashed in Oregon

What’s Wrong With Being Alone?

“People, people who need people, are the luckiest people in the world.” Are you one of those people who need people? Are you uncomfortable being alone? Or do you crave time alone? Is your happy place on the couch with a book or in the middle of a noisy crowd? These are questions I’ve been asking lately and questions that were asked yesterday in a conversation at the Newport Library sponsored by Oregon Humanities.

“Going Solo: The Value of Solitude in a Social World” was the topic led by Jennifer Allen, director of programs at Oregon Humanities. The 20 or so of us who attended had a lot to say on the subject. In general, we’re in favor of solitude. Maybe not 24/7, but we like our “me time.”

Much of our discussion focused on technology, how some people, especially the young, seem incapable of leaving their smart phones, tablets or computers for more than a few minutes at a time. (I’m guilty of that). Our connections pursue us with phone calls, emails, texts and status updates to the point we never seem to be alone even if there’s no actual human nearby. Can you claim to be alone if you’re plugged in? If you get an email or the phone rings, is it okay to ignore it?

Are people forgetting how to be quiet, how to think? To daydream? Are we hiding from our thoughts and feelings? Allen described a scientific study which asked people to spend 6-15 minutes just thinking, doing nothing else. The subjects had a hard time doing it.

I like to be alone. For me, a good time, is sitting out in the sun reading or writing. A nightmare is walking into a noisy crowd.

I love playing music alone. But I also love jamming. Our jam in Waldport last week was magical (Fridays, 3-5 p.m., community center). You have to learn your songs alone, but combining talents can create beautiful music way beyond what is possible on your own. It’s pretty hard to harmonize with one voice. But, let’s be honest, one lousy player or off-key singer can ruin the whole thing.

That sounds bitchy, something introverts like me are often accused of. People who like to be alone are called bitchy, snobbish, or antisocial. No, I like people–in small doses. I think we all need people around sometimes, but all the time? Sometimes my dog is too much company. Other times being alone makes me very sad. Then I wish I had a house full of family.

During our conversation, we agreed there’s a difference between solitude that we choose and solitude that is thrust on us. Many older people fall into this category. Their kids are grown, their spouses die, their friends have died or moved away, and they spend far too much time alone. Remember, prisoners are sent to “solitary confinement” as punishment.

Ideally, we have our time alone AND our time with others in whatever mixture feels comfortable. Meanwhile, we have dogs or cats.

It was ironic that although most of us at yesterday’s conversation prefer to be alone, we got together with other people to talk about it and never ran out of things to say.

Oregon Humanities plans several more conversations throughout the state. For information on the conversation project, visit http://oregonhumanities.org/programs/community-conversations.

How about you? How do you feel about being alone? Do you enjoy it? Hate it? Fear it? Wish you could claim a minute to yourself? Let’s talk about it.

Running away to Neskowin

Some days I just have to run away. If I had a regular job, I’d have to stifle that impulse, but as a writer working from home, I can jump in my car, drive to the highway and decide to go either north or south. Last Thursday, with my car finally back from the body shop, I chose north.

I needed to get reacquainted with my Honda Element, sometimes known as The Toaster, after almost two weeks driving the black bomb, a low-slung Toyota Corolla that was fast, quiet, fuel-efficient and had a great stereo. In comparison, the Toaster feels like a truck. Now it’s a truck with many shiny new parts. Since the accident, I had become a very nervous driver. I needed to get over that.

DSCN4002 — A riot of nasturtiums at a house in Neskowin

Thursday’s adventure started in Depoe Bay, where I joined the tourists watching for whales and taking pictures. It was a gorgeous day, the waves wild and many shades of blue. As I stood outside the whale-watching center with my camera, a stranger said, “Look over there. A whale. You’ll see his spout in a minute.” To be honest, I never saw it, but it felt good staring at the waves, resting my eyes after too many hours staring at a computer screen. Workers at the center keep a tally of whale sightings. Folks had already seen eight by 11:00 that morning. They counted 11 the day before.

From Depoe Bay, I continued north to Lincoln City. School may have started, but we still have plenty of tourists, many of them driving gigantic motorhomes. Slow. But I wasn’t in a hurry. Ooh, Robert’s Bookshop. A goldmine, but I had already purchased at least a dozen books in the last month. The outlet stores. Didn’t feel like shopping. Library. Again, too many books. Antiquing? Yes, but later.

I have grown fond of the Pig n Pancake restaurant in Newport, housed in the old city hall building. So when I saw the Lincoln City P n P, I decided to eat there. The place was jammed. Noisy. It wasn’t a dining experience; it was a feeding trough. Party of one? The hostess led me to a tiny table barely big enough to get my body behind and slapped down a menu. The next party was too close for comfort. And I thought: no. I walked out, got back in my car and kept driving north.

I did a lot of grumbling to myself about how if my husband were still alive, this trip would be a lot more fun, and nobody would stick us in a corner. He loved these field trips.

I was thinking I’d go to the Pelican Pub in Pacific City, but first I came to Neskowin, a tiny beach community where I sang during a 2014 garden tour. That day, running late and fixated on the gig, I didn’t notice the Cafe on Hawk Creek just off the highway. But I saw it this time. It looked cute and uncrowded.

I walked in, the hostess took one look at me and said, “Two?” Um, no. But that was the only negative thing. She sat me at a big wooden table, and I sank into a soft-cushioned seat. I ordered the chicken club sandwich, but this was not the usual three slices of bread with lunch meat chicken, bacon, tomato and lettuce. This was a giant hunk of fresh-baked chicken, fat slices of bacon, tomato and onion and cole slaw on a ciabatta roll. Heaven on a plate. I sipped my iced tea, read my book and luxuriated in great food. The waitress left my bill but assured me there was no rush. The meal fed my soul as well as my body.

I had gone far enough. Backtracking to Lincoln City, I spent the next couple hours wandering the aisles of the Little Antique Mall at the north end of town, where I scored some 1930s sheet music and vintage handkerchiefs. I love looking at old stuff and listening to old music.

I got home in time to catch some sun on the deck and quality time with the dog. All in all, a great runaway day. Now that the toaster had a little dirt and few more miles on it, it was time to go back to work.

Brown-bagging it to school 1950s style

Picture this: a wrinkled brown paper bag with “Susan” written on one side and grease stains on the other side. For most of my elementary and junior high school years, 1957-1966, this was my lunch, and the contents were far different from what kids are eating at school now.

I got to thinking about this as I wondered how to cook the pork loin in my freezer. Should I ask a friend for advice or just consult Betty Crocker? If my mom were alive, I could call her, but she probably wouldn’t know. Growing up, we only ate fat-laden pork roasts, ham and bacon. Pork loin?

That led me to thinking about the slices of greasy pork in the sandwiches Mom packed in my lunch bag. Also in my brother’s lunch bag and our father’s steel lunch box. Sometimes it was leather roast beef that I had to rip with my teeth as the white bread around it dissolved under my fingers. And the meat loaf sandwiches, oh my gosh. And baloney we could bite into shapes, our teeth leaving scalloped designs, except where our baby teeth had fallen out. Slathered in Best Foods “real” mayonnaise. None of this low-fat business I’m eating these days.

Fridays were more challenging because we were not allowed to eat meat, and I didn’t like peanut better. Sometimes my sandwich held two slices of yellow cheese slathered with butter. More often, it was oily tuna mixed with ketchup, the grease leaking through the bag.

The sandwich wrapped in waxed paper wasn’t all. Mom tucked in potato chips—regular or barbecue were the only choices then, a few dried apricots, and dessert—homemade cookies or brownies, Ding-Dongs, Ho-Hos, Hostess Cupcakes, or Hershey Bars. Somewhere in there was also a paper napkin and a nickel to buy a carton of milk.

We never had backpacks in those days of the late 1950s and early 1960s. We carried everything in our arms, our lunch bags crackling against our clothes with every step of our saddle shoes.

Mike and I sat with our classmates at long fold-down metal tables in the Cypress School multipurpose room. We didn’t trade; we knew our lunches were the best. We looked forward all morning to eating what was in the bag. We could smell the food from the coat closet or our desks. We devoured our lunches elbow to elbow with our friends and their bag lunches, then wadded up napkins, wrappers and bags and tossed them basketball-style into the big steel trash cans. No recycling back then.

Like most schools, Cypress sold hot lunches. The kids who bought their lunches sat on the other side of the room. We tried it one year. The spaghetti tasted great, but more often, we were served cubes of mystery meat in transparent gravy over a stingy blob of mashed potatoes. No comparison to Mom’s food. Plus we didn’t want to spend half our lunch period waiting in line for old ladies in hair nets to slap that glop onto green plastic plates.

As you might guess, my brother and I were not skinny. Our mother, also not skinny, didn’t stress out about sugar, fat, gluten, lactose, or high fructose corn syrup. But we were healthy. We ate well, and we got lots of exercise, walking to school, playing games at recess and in P.E., always on the move after school on skates, bikes or running in our cheap tennis shoes. Unlike today’s kids glued to phones, tablets and computers, the only screens we paid attention to were the screen doors slamming behind us as we ran out to play.

School lunches have changed a lot. Now moms are posting pictures online of healthy box lunches full of fruits, grains and veggies, sometimes cut into hearts, stars or other designs. The sandwiches do not include big fat slabs of meat oozing grease. And where are the Ding-Dongs and potato chips? Alas, I don’t eat them anymore either.

I’m sure today’s lunches are healthier, but those pork or beef sandwiches, made with leftovers from our meat-and-potato dinners, sure tasted good. In fact, thinking about them is making me hungry.

As for the pork loin in my freezer, I’ll ask Betty Crocker. Unlike everything else, she hasn’t changed a bit.

How about your school lunches? What did you eat? Did you bring lunch from home or buy it? Or did you go without? Not every kid is as lucky as we were. Please share in the comments.

Woman and Dog in the Woods

So many things on my mind. Health problems, car accident, an argument with a friend. After dinner, I sink into the backyard spa and let the hot water steep me like a tea bag, soaking out the crazies as daylight fades around me. While I soak, Annie runs around the yard, barking at dogs she hears in other yards, grabbing a yard-long tree branch and carrying it around, then settling down to chew on it like a peppermint stick.

When I get out, not ready to go into the house, still avoiding the telephone and email, I wrap myself in my big towel and sit on the grass. Annie comes running and sits beside me. I wrap my arm around her. Suddenly we feel like a couple, Annie and me, partners in this challenging life of childless widowhood in the woods. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for this big yellow dog. I know she won’t live forever. But she’s here now, and that’s what counts.

Whatever I do, she’s nearby, watching, listening, waiting for a chance to share my food, walk with me, or lie beside me on the love seat while I read, write, talk on the phone, or just pet her and tell her I love her. When she leans her 80 pounds into me, I feel something inside me sigh and relax.

Earlier, we walked our usual walk down 98th Street and into the wildness area beyond the houses. Suddenly Annie froze, ears up, listening. I didn’t hear anything. I was ready to plunge on through the salal and blackberries, but Annie turned us around. Tail down, she led me swiftly back to the road. I still didn’t see any danger, but she did, and I trust her superior hearing and smell. Often she has sensed someone or something long before I noticed. It was probably just a deer, but when Annie says, “Let’s go,” we go, just as she obeys when I pull her out of the way because a car is coming or I see potentially poisonous refuse on the side of the road. These days when the bushes are full of ripe berries, she eats from the lower branches and I eat from the upper ones. We’re a team.

Thank God for Annie.

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